Halloween Pop Quiz!

In the spirit of Open Critique Day, and in honor of Halloween, today you are going to be providing helpful costume design pointers to other Internet citizens bedeviled by poor fashion sense (for instance, these sad bastards) in our second one-day surprise Pop Quiz!

Go out on the web and find an image of someone in what you think is a poor example of a Halloween costume.

Grab the link to the outfit image, then redesign a better one in HeroMachine.

In a comment to this post, give us your critique of the original (along with a link to the image), and a link like for any character design contest to your proposed re-design.

At the end of the day I'll pick a winner, who will receive their choice of any HM3 item or portrait, or a "sketch of the day" style custom black and white illustration of whatever they like (within reason). Then we can all go out tomorrow and celebrate by dressing up in slutty costumes and begging our neighbors for candy. As Jim Gaffigan says, when he was a kid that was cool, but try it now and they call the cops on you! Probably because he makes a hot Catwoman.

http://borlavlit.narod.ru/badcostume.png
Original:http://borlavlit.narod.ru/untitled.bmp
First of all, it’s not clear whether this boy wanted to impersonate Spiderman, Prince of Persia, a terrorist or some random guy. Placing pants on the head is a bad idea, just like going on a festival with masked face and naked chest. The cape on the backplane looks totally like a curtain, that doesn’t add any beauty. All that in general looks so terrible that I’m sure – this is the worst Halloween costume I’ve ever seen

No, the only critiquing is by you all of the costumes you picked. Today I am simply a judge.

Regular Open Critique Day resumes next week in all likelihood.

Also, you asked in another thread about what’s next for HM3 and the answer is that crappy internet has slowed me greatly (along with taking over the UGO forums administration) but I am still converting male-only items to female.

You did a great job of recreating him, probably should’ve flipped his left arm(his left), upside down, and as far as the pants(pope hat, nah just kidding) goes, if you overlap the legs onto the base, and move them closer(usually up, obviously down here) 1 place, it hids the beak lines.

Now with that out of the way, I think your suppose to improve on the design, instead of just recreate it, but either way, you did a very nice job with it.

*Off Topic*
Over the last few days, I’ve gotten a couple e-mails that bare promising news.

-The First
“New York Comic Con fans went nuts when we announced X-Men Destiny. In this upcoming title, your decisions will control the fate of brand new mutants in the X-Men universe. Every choice you make matters, from your character to your power set to your story and ultimately your destiny. Veteran X-scribe Mike Carey (X-Men, X-Men: Legacy, Secret Invasion, The Unwritten) will be crafting X-Men Destiny’s narrative, and famed developer Silicon Knights is on board for the game’s design.

If you want to know more about X-Men Destiny, discuss the trailer on the HeroHQ forums: your fellow X-fans may have noticed something you missed! Also, HeroHQ VIP members will be called upon to share feedback directly with the developer, and let their voice be heard. Become a VIP today!”

Sounds promising, me thinks!

-The Second
“Greetings, Champion!

We’ve got some big news we wanted to share with you right away.

Beginning Q1 2011, Champions Online will offer a free-to-play gameplay option. Everyone can download, play and enjoy Champions Online at absolutely no cost!

All you’ll need to do is download the game and begin playing. It will be a great opportunity to head back to the Champions universe to see what’s changed, spend time with your friends and enjoy a top-tier MMO without spending a dime.

We’re sure you have a lot of questions. That’s good! We’re looking forward to working with you to answer them. Right now, we’ve set up a new short FAQ and a special Q&A forum to begin answering your more in-depth questions.

We plan on entering our free-to-play beta on November 9, and to launch the new, free-to-play version of Champions Online in the first quarter of 2011. We can’t wait to grow the game with you, and we hope you’re as excited as we are!

As always, thanks for your continued support. We’ll see you in Millennium City!

Well this um … unique guy’s costume leaves a lot to be desired. The color scheme itself is really quite simple and used differently could work quite well.

Unfortunately it was used this way. The pattern seems confused and disjointed; almost as if a bunch of black and white construction paper just got knocked of a desk and subsequently sewn together the way it landed.

The loose, sloppy collar really goes a long way to demonstrate an unfinished ensemble.

The raised, thrust back elbows give the impression that the jacket doesn’t fit. That coupled with the strained monkey mouth facial expression really gives the impression of someone not entirely comfortable around people.

In this case the opposite dichotomy of the colors gives the impression of two separate elements not quite coming together as a whole.

The end result is a what appears to be a cross between Steve Urkel and a Rorschach inkblot test

In the redo of this outfit I had a few goals. The first of course was to make the costume look more balanced. While each color now occupies a predominant side, each side now meshes better and is less disjointed. The addition of the background was meant to help emphasize that idea.

Additionally the new costume was meant to look like it fit better and the obvious result was that it is more comfortable to wear.

The layout of the colors, blacks together with blacks, and whites with whites, is much simpler and less distracting.

Overall, the wearer of the newer version of the costume appears much more comfortable in not only the costume but also his own skin. I’d venture to say he even looks a little cooler.

Here are a few more costumes that I thought would be fun to critique, kind of like Wednesdays: Bad Super Hero Costumes. It seemed to fit here.

Oompa Loompa Presleyhttp://2.bp.blogspot.com/_FNaqDjMRWz0/TKR_riKFMcI/AAAAAAAAEbw/E7ocNvRNuGw/s400/30slide1.jpg
The first thing that came to mid with this dude was the Oompa Loompa’s from Willy Wonka’s Chocolate Factory. Then I couldn’t help but notice the similarity to Elvis Presley. I tell you, those are two entities I never imagined would ever seem coalesced into one. I could not help but notice how he was flanked by all the Cylon’s. A really strange mix and yet, call me crazy, in some masochistic way, it kind of works. Go figure.

Fuchsia Rockerhttp://blogs.laweekly.com/westcoastsound/peaches1.jpg
What the f**k! I mean really?!? Sorry for the language but what scenario, in what culture, on what planet would this outfit EVER be considered O.K.? This is so bad I can’t even bear to break it down into individual reasons.

Okay, I know this one is late (I’ve got 1:20ish AM Mountain Time), but I’ll throw it up, and if Jeff accepts it, cool. If not, I really did want to participate, and this was the best I could manage, but I will abide by Jeff’s rules.

Where to start… Kid, you have the worst parents in the world. Either they were too stupid to know how to tell you how much this costume is in poor taste, or, Heaven forbid, they encouraged you to wear this. They should be forced to apologize to any victim of a suicide bombing attack, their families, and frankly, most Arab Muslims.

Also, your explosives look stupid, and you’re wearing a fleece hoodie and jeans. I can tell. I can’t see your feet, but according to what I can extrapolate, I think you’re wearing running shoes. Not traditional Arabic garb. You get a fail.

OK so you were commmenting I forgot Spidey briefs …. but I didn’t. I mentioned he should stick to the Tigger theme and loose the Spidey briefs. I am a HUGE Spidey fan myself and I don’t mind a guy flashing some skin, I encourage it. My “improvement” was for Tigger Boy to keep the Tigger theme, which was what I did purposely in my HM3. I hope that clears things up.

Forgot to critique the original (#28, Stupid spider costume): It sucks! The hat, the bowtie, what self-respecting man would be caught dead in that thing? The thick yellow gloves are just ridiculous, and the boots look clumsy. The costume seems to have been inspired by those spiders in the old cartoons from the forties.

If only I had the good sense to heed Jeff’s warning above, I would have been spared the searing of mine eyes, but foolish me thought he was being a tad dramatic. Now, it’s far too late to unsee the horror I’ve witnessed.